It's must have been a busy summer for the marketing teams and their agencies of Google, Premier Foods' Mr Kipling, and HSBC as all three have launched new looks in the first week of September: Google's new logo, Mr Kipling's new packaging just 12 months after the last redesign, and HSBC changing to, well, HSBC UK.

The world is slowly returning from the summer holidays but spare a thought for those people who will have had the pressure on over that time to prepare themselves to tell the world about their new, defined brand positioning and brand identity, and importantly, use the opportunity to tell their stories and control their main messages.

Last year, as Interim Head of Marketing and Communications for Carter Jonas, I took the firm through a national brand refresh with their wonderful in-house team and the superb design agency NextBigThing.

With the launch in the first week of September, it meant that August was by no means quiet, or a time to catch up with filing, for the team as we pulled together the last phases of the project which had taken just six months from start to finish.

It was all hands to pumps as we geared up for the big unveiling from advertising to sales boards, stationary to website, but importantly, during June and July, we had also carried out an internal brand refresh roadshow which took us across the country to nearly all of Carter Jonas' offices to explain the brand essence and new look and feel way before we told the world. It was a whirlwind of a summer but when we finally launched, it was a great feeling, and client feedback was very positive.

And finally we were able to see the brand out there, in action, and implement it across the plethora of on and offline marketing material that the company produces.